Information about how commercial bee keeping functions and its impact to overall bee populations was inquired about by Brent Lewis, Landscape Architect. Below is the response from Adam Donzel, an Assistant Professor in Entomology. 

'Hi Brent,

Yeah, there is work on that.  Here are links to couple studies about it:

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep32023

https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/22/1/17/6523145

Basically, yes, there are some stresses involved with migratory beekeeping but sedentary colonies can also have similar issues. In some scenarios, migratory colonies could be healthier as they are moved to areas with good nutritional resources all the time, while those left in place have to deal with times of low food availability. In reality, though, migratory colonies do undergo a lot of stress as they are used to pollinate crops and a lot goes into that - the stress of confinement, heat, exposure to agrochemicals, etc. From a beekeeping perspective, this is calculated into the fees charged for pollination (to some extent at least). Right now, beekeepers charge about $200/hive to pollinate almonds for example (the most lucrative pollination event). Big beekeepers manage 20,000-50,000 hives!  "Small" commercial beekeepers usually have 2-5000.

Migratory beekeeping uses about 85% of the managed colonies in the USA (incredible!). One big issue with this is that, if a new pest or pathogen is introduced, it will be spread throughout the country very fast. And in big pollination events, like almonds, hives are concentrated at very high densities, which does present a lot of opportunities for spreading diseases. They do mitigate this to some extent, however, as there are health checks required to move bees across state lines, and almond growers usually require checks of colonies to make sure they are healthy.

Hope this helps - always happy to answer questions when I can!"

From: White, Morgan

To: Moore, Meredith Kaye

Hi Meredith,

Where on the portal do you think BeeSpotter belongs? I'm thinking it should be in the Resilience theme, but I'm not sure whether it should be under one of the other projects or just under the main one.

Morgan

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From: Moore, Meredith Kaye

To: White, Morgan

Hi Morgan,

That’s a good question. In my opinion, it doesn’t seem to fit well with any of the other projects under the resilience theme page. So unless we want to create a new project “support local pollinator projects” (or something of the sort) with the intention of adding additional pollinator projects, I vote for now let’s make it a project under the main theme. Does that make sense?

Thanks,
Meredith
 
Link to proposal:

https://uillinoisedu-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/fandsamaloto2_ad_u...

Link to BeeSpotter:

https://beespotter.org/

Ehab Kamarah and Madhu Khanna approved $135,000 of funding from the Carbon Credit Sales Fund for the Grind2Energy system.

"This project will install the Grind2Energy system for food waste at the Lincoln Avenue
Dining Hall on campus... Housing has successfully installed the Grind2Enery system as a sustainable solution for dining hall pre-consumer and post-consumer food waste in four of the five dining halls. This funding would allow them to complete the final installation before the student body returns in fall 2022." -Morgan White (12/14/2021)

An email of approval is attached below.

True food circularity must include waste reduction on the agricultural and consumer sides. Don't miss this third iSEE Congress webinar on "Circular Food Systems," with Brian Roe, Van Buren Professor of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at Ohio State; and Tom Theis, Director of The Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago. Register here >>>

November 3, 12–1 pm • Zoom webinar

Julie Wurth • Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment

"How Can We Reduce Waste from Agricultural and Food Systems?"

Previous Title: Reusable Dining Options

Previous Project Description: The Zero Waste SWATeam is interested in pursuing reusable service options for campus facilities which serve food at any capacity. This particularly applies to to-go options.

A to-go option using reusable containers will be implemented this fall in University Housing Dining at three locations: Lincoln Avenue Dining, Illinois Street Dining and Ikenberry Dining.  

Previous Project Background: 

As stated in the iCAP 2020, 

"Objective #5.3 ensures that items used on campus-particularly at large events- are durable, repairable, and reusable, and that they contribute to our university-wide culture of reuse."

This project is aligned with the goals of cultivating a zero waste culture on campus. Food is an enormous portion of the human experience, and rather than eliminate it, the Zero Waste SWATeam hopes to shift the paradigm towards the sustainable future the University of Illinois is planning. By providing opportunities for students to utilize reusable containers and participate in a reusable dining program, it will not only yield measurable reductions of single-use items in the waste stream, but will also bring sustainability to the forefront of each participant.